BROOKLINE (CBS) – Neighbors are on the offensive in Brookline after what some residents are describing as aggressive turkeys.
“They were attacking the vehicle,” Karen Halvorson said outside her home in the Aspinwall Hill neighborhood.
After getting in her truck, a neighbor came and ran the birds off but it didn’t stop there.
“Then, the turkeys came and started attacking my front door,” she said.
A second run-in came a few weeks ago as she walked nearby.
“I looked back and three of them charged me,” she explained.
She moved to the center of the street to avoid the animals, but it wasn’t enough.
“The turkey flew in my face and scratched my neck,” she said. […]
Complaints to Brookline Police about wild turkeys have doubled in the past two months.
“Some people going to work and they’ve been chased by turkeys,” said Brookline Animal Control Officer Pierre Verrier.
He spends nearly every morning trying to keep the animals away from students at Brookline High School.
“Sometimes I even take a tennis racket to try and shoo them out,” he said. […]
There are two turkey hunting seasons a year in Massachusetts. But in metropolitan areas, with firearm restrictions, that doesn’t help.
Now see, there’s the problem. If a swaggering group of turkeys started losing a few members to the dinner table, they might not be trying to bully school kids.
Hey! We just lost Bob! Cheese it, guys, back to the woods!
Happy Thanksgiving all! May any encounter you have today with Wild Turkeys be the kind you find in the bottom of a glass with a splash of branch water.
Turkey’s ain’t scary. GEESE are scary. Not ‘water-moccasin scary’ but pretty dang scary when they want to be. The way a goose rushes you makes you consider that maybe he or she knows something you don’t about how the confrontation is going to go. Like maybe he’ll spit acid in your face or somehow shoot you with a lightning bolt. They have some real confidence.
Turkeys not turkey’s.
I saw a Canada goose back down a friends 140 lb. mastiff that up until that point had never been afraid of anything.
I’ve got a flock of ’em that hangs out in my yard. They have the good sense to head in the other direction when they see people coming. They’re good birds.
So, maybe the neighbor knows something this nitwit doesn’t know.
Yep. Yer doin’ it wrong.
A meeting! That’ll fix it!
Geese are scary. They hiss like snakes and charge like bulls.
My neighbors (more than a mile away) had a pair of geese that decided to expand their hood and started coming up in my yard and giving me the business. Fortunately, a different neighbors’ pitbull took issue with geese invading his turf and the goose was cooked, as they say.
Greetings:
My thoughts run along the lines of a leaf rake and going after the critters instead of waiting for them to come after you.
An ecological dream is a terrible thing to waste.
I once saw a wild turkey standing on a runaway truck ramp off the highway in Pittsburgh. He had his tail fanned out and was watching the traffic.
I kept a couple of Embden Geese some years ago. One of the old ladies from the village who walked by the house was terrified by them, and asked why I wasn’t. I showed her the muddy boot prints on their fronts.
A meeting! That’ll fix it!
It is Massachusets after all.
When you see stories like this, about people being confused and intimidated by a fucking bird it does make you understand their voting habits.
Too stupid to be embarassed by it.
Those big assed wings make a powerful loud noise when they’re taking off. I can still recall the startle and 3 ft. jump I made as a 12 yr. old the first time I walked into a hunkered down invisible turkey in the woods who decided to take the air only after I’d just passed him. I thought there was a Huey landing on my head.
Happy Thanksgiving, denizens.
A cute little quail can do the same thing. I have almost pissed myself jumping a covey of them. Being startled is a bit different than being scared.
“Being startled is a bit different than being scared.”
Heh, that‘s a truth. I turned with my boomstick and let fly a parcel of my own. Take that ya friggin’ bird.
‘Course I missed him, dangitall.
Haven’t seen any wild turkey around The Freehold so far — not even the 100 proof kind — but I’d be surprised if they weren’t around. In these parts they’re kinda shy, maybe because we also have coyotes.
If you club them then you have committed an illegal act of animal cruelty. The turkeys are dimwitted aggressive animals given arbitrary power over humans by the government – like TSA agents.
At least the turkeys and geese are edible. We have quite a few different creatures that come around because of my wife’s bird feeders. The only ones that are a problem, when you want to get outside at dusk, are the skunks. Those I don’t want to get involved with.
like TSA agents
– Well, except TSA agents never learned to fly, and they do everything they can to keep everyone else from flying too.
– Hey Proggies, apparently you just can’t get enough of being lied too and dissappointed. So here comes that “2nd term” you all wanted so badly
– Happy Bird day everyone. Lets all join together in giving the dear leader the bird.
There are few things I enjoy more than goose shooting. They make the most satisfying thump when they hit the deck.
There are geese who winter a few blocks from me at the ADM milling facility (or at least there have been in years past). I guess they get enough to eat from whatever grain that spills during unloading.
I saw a giant schnauzer make short work of an aggressive swan. I am pretty sure he could take out a flock of Canada geese.
We’ve just discovered that at least one of our neighbors here at The Freehold is unlikely to complain if we set up to do some shooting practice at home.
Not sure what they’re firing but it’s definitely bigger than .22LR
This looks like it would be a fine way to deal with a wild turkey or goose…
While that does look like a nice way to do turkey, EBL, in my experience wild goose is best breasted, stuffed with sausage meat and wrapped in prosciutto, and braised over stock in a Dutch oven. It is very dry and tough otherwise, and resembles roast beef more than fowl. That’s the way I cook it for Christmas, at any rate.
I saw wild gobblegobbles yesterday off the blue ridge parkway they sure are big but these ones were peaceful
Hah I finally found someone to make me a Tom n Jerry! He’s doing it from scratch from a book…. You should see him going to town on the egg whites
oh man that’s tasty
and stout
way way stout
It was his first one
I have a feeling this is the bestest Tom n Jerry i will ever have my whole life
I’ve already gotten to where I mostly just ignore north carolina people until I want them to bring me something tasty
Poor little things all have huge uncomfortable sticks up their asses i don’t know how to help them
At first I thought it was just an Asheville thing
For sure I’m not in the south anymore
My favorite way to deal with wild turkey is in a rocks glass.
Rocks optional.
– I generally start forgetting to add more rocks about the third round.
We’ve got very shy wild turkeys up in the park area that’s about a mile from my house. I do like those birds.
I am healthily afraid of swans, though. Geese not so much even though they are huge jerks.
Get an empty quart sink detergent bottle. Fill it half-way with one part ammonia, four parts water.
Find a squirt gun that will fit inside a zip-lock sandwich bag. (Oh, yeah, first get a zip-lock sandwich bag.)
Fill the gun from the Ivory bottle. (Or Dawn. Or whatever.) Carry it inside the zip-lock bag when going into scary-bird areas. Squirt them once in the body and they’ll just turn around and leave.
Avoid the eyes. And the beak. And the ears. Pretty much just avoid the head unless it’s “last resort” time.
We have Canada geese that hang out in our orchard and eat the windfall fruit. They don’t come in the yard because our dogs like to chase them off.
I’m glad they prefer to hang out up the road in the dogless neighbors yards since they can crap out a pound of poop every day. I read it in the NYT, so it must be true.